


Could Have Drowned

by jesuisherve



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: 00Silva, Alternate Universe, Angst, Beaches, Conversations, Drabble, Drowning, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Nobody is Dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-21
Updated: 2014-04-21
Packaged: 2018-01-20 07:41:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1502273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesuisherve/pseuds/jesuisherve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James is feeling anxious and fidgety- like he needs to move. Raoul warns him that the ocean is probably not good for swimming in right then, but James ignores him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Could Have Drowned

**Author's Note:**

> A drabble because I'm stressed from finals and needed to write something where they're alive and together. From the same AU "Do We Have A Problem?" is based in.

James is restless. He has been all day. Raoul is content to lie in the sun, but James wants to get moving. He complains but Raoul shushes him. Frustrated, James says he is going swimming. “Bad idea,” Raoul says sleepily. He’s on his stomach, head pillowed in his arms and eyes closed. He is soaking in the sun. The scars on his back are already faded from time. They rope along his skin in pale white lines. James trails his fingers along them. They’re as faded as they can be, and Raoul has stopped caring what the sun will do to them.

“I won’t go far,” James says, annoyed that the implied limitation in Raoul’s tone; and annoyed that he feels that he must justify and assure.

“No good for swimming, James,” Raoul says, opening one eye to look at him. “The water is strong. You could get swept away.”

James stands and rolls his shoulders. He cannot sit still for much longer. His body is demanding to move, to do something. His mind is racing. He knows that he wants to move because he is agitated. He needs to tire himself out, to rid himself of the jitters. Maybe if he is exhausted, his mind will slow down. Raoul gives him an apprehensive glance as he walks towards the ocean but he doesn’t see it. The water is turbulent, but it doesn’t seem to be unmanageable. He wades up past his waist before diving forward to swim. The water is strong, like Raoul warned, but he welcomes the challenge.

A wave rolls in. James bobs up and down with it. Another rolls in but bigger. James does not feel concerned. He is buffeted by another wave. It breaks over his head, knocking him off balance in the water. He coughs and rights himself, putting his feet on the ocean floor. The water is past his shoulders. James is knocked over again. He cannot get footing on the sand below. “Fuck,” he mutters. How perfect, to blow off Raoul’s advice and then not be able to keep upright? Perfect fucking timing. He slips on loose sand as a wave crashes into him. He tumbles, cursing silently as the water tosses him around.

A sharp pain flares in the back of his skull. He is disoriented. The water is murky from the sand he kicked up.

 

* * *

 

Raoul notices James falling in the water. He mutters to himself, lamenting that a grown man cannot even keep his head above the water. Then he realizes that James is actually struggling. He sees James disappear beneath a particularly big wave and doesn’t see him come up right away. Raoul jumps to his feet and makes a dash for the water. He is not as fit as he used to be, but he grew up on his grandmother’s island. He knows water, he knows the ocean. James does not. Although England is an island Raoul has always found the English to be woefully uneducated about the sea.

He finds James quickly. He has not gone far, as promised. He is a little dazed, but still conscious. Raoul drags James out of the ocean. He pulls him up on the beach. His hands flit nervously like birds, not sure where to land. James is breathing, ragged and wet, but breathing. Raoul decides and cups James’ face with his hands. “James,” he says. There is a snag in his voice. “Are you okay?”

James blinks his eyes furiously. He coughs once, twice. Water trickles from the corner of his mouth. “I think so,” he chokes out. He sits up with some help from Raoul. His head is aching. He gingerly feels along his scalp, winces, and draws his hand back. Blood streaks his fingers. “I hit my head,” he says.

“I can see that,” Raoul says dryly. “I told you the ocean was wild today.” James motions that he wants to stand. Raoul acts as support. They move slowly. He keeps an arm around James’ waist to keep him steady. “We are going back,” he says firmly.

 

* * *

 

James looks out the window as they drive. He has a towel draped over his shoulders. He is covered in sand despite his efforts to brush it off. Raoul says nothing. Water droplets rolls down James’ skin which is prickled with goose bumps. The car is going to be a mess. Both of them are soaking wet and sandy, but Raoul pays no mind. Cars can be cleaned.

Raoul’s hands are tight on the steering wheel. Something is wrong. James is not a foolish child who could easily be lost in the ocean. He must not have been paying proper attention to have been almost drowned in water that only went up to his neck. James does not want to talk. Raoul senses this and respects it. There is something on his mind, and it is not the fact that Raoul had to haul him coughing and weak from the ocean.

They return to the hotel they have been occupying for the past two weeks. It is close to the beach, so the drive is mercifully short. The woman at the front desk gives them a cheery hello. Raoul offers an apology for their mess— sandy footprints on the clean floor— but she shakes her head and says it is no problem. They take the elevator to their suit.

“We’re covered in sand,” Raoul says. “Let’s go wash up.”

James grunts agreement. He runs hot water from the shower in the suit’s large bathroom. Raoul sits on the side of the tub and watches James’ movements with a critical eye. “We need to talk,” Raoul tells him.

“Ah,” James says. He does not elaborate.

Raoul points a finger at him. “There is something on your mind, yes? We will discuss it.” James shrugs and strips out of his beach shorts. He pushes the shower curtain aside. Water mists from the spray and sprinkles Raoul’s shoulders. James steps into the shower. Raoul sits for another minute before shedding his own shorts and stepping into the shower as well.

James moves to make space for Raoul next to him. Raoul wraps his arms around the other man and holds him as the water from the shower head drums on both of them. His touch is not sexual, it is comforting. He starts to brush the sand and grit off of James’ chest, shoulders, back, arms. He kisses James’ forehead and James helps rinse the sand off him in return. The water from the shower is warm and soothing. James’ head still hurts but Raoul distracts from the pain.

When they finally emerge, the air is heavy with steam. James wraps a clean hotel towel around his middle and wipes off a portion of the mirror. He examines his face. There is a tiny cut on his forehead, probably from a rock on the ocean floor when he hit his head. The wound at the back of his head had stopped bleeding in the car. He feels for it again. No blood on his fingers. “Do you want me to look at it?” Raoul asks, wrapping a towel around his own waist.

“Yeah,” James replies.

They go to the bedroom. James sits on the floor and Raoul sits on the bed. He leans forward and gently parts James’ short, wet hair. He finds the cut on the back of James’ head and it does not look too deep. There isn’t much Raoul can do about it. It looks clean, however. He pushes his own damp hair back from his forehead. “It will be fine. If it bleeds again, we’ll have it looked at by a physician.”

James gets up. He touches his head again. The ache has turned dull. Raoul hooks his fingers beneath the towel and tugs on it. He doesn’t try to pull it off. He tries to pull James towards him. “What’s wrong, darling?”

“Raoul,” James says. There is a sigh in his voice. He stays standing but he steps closer to Raoul. The blond takes his hands and holds them. “Are you ever bored?”

“How can I be bored?” Raoul asks. He is amused. “I have my life back. I am learning to live again. I have you by my side.”

James lifts Raoul’s hands to his mouth and kisses them. He can taste the ocean on him still. The salt of the water and the air. “I gave up a lot to come with you,” James murmurs, lips brushing Raoul’s knuckles. “I don’t want to go back to MI6, but it was my home for years. There’s... an empty space. I don’t know how to _be_ without it.” He kneels to be eye to eye with Raoul.

The blond tilts his head to the side. “You could take up cyber terrorism.”

“That is a tremendously bad idea,” James says dryly. “You’re not doing that anymore either. You promised.”

Raoul smiles at him. “It was a joke, darling.” Illegal activity attracts MI6. Neither of them wants that. They both value freedom. He cups James’ face, like he did at the beach. He pictures James back at MI6; back in his suits, armed with gadgets and guns and earpieces. He sees James with dark smudges under his eyes from not sleeping; he sees new scars, new stiffness in James’ bones. They are older. There is no more “getting older” for them, in that line of work. They’re as old as agents get, because agents do not leave the field quietly.

“Do you regret these four years?” Raoul asks.

“No,” James says quickly. “No, I don’t. But I need something more in my life. We travel, we laze on the beach, we eat and drink, but there has to be something else.”

Raoul drops his hands from James’ face. He is content to laze on the beach. He hasn’t done so since before he can remember. The five months of torture stole much. His obsession with M had done the same. He dedicated most of his life to other people. Now, he wants to live for himself.

And for James.

“Another year,” Raoul says. “Please. One more year, just us. We can find something after.”

“Yeah.” James relaxes for the first time that day. “I can do another year.”

Raoul kisses James then. They help each other onto the bed without breaking contact. Raoul will not let James go. He is for James, and James is for him. They are the last two rats. Raoul occasionally thinks that they are more than the last two rats. They can become more than the sad metaphor from his past, but for the time being, he is a happy rat who is sleek and fat and content with life.

James is hard, cool foundation. He is rock and soil, with equal potential for growth and for barrenness. Raoul is smoke and fire- ravaging, damaging, annihilating, but also renewing. A forest fire is as revitalizing as it is devastating, but it needs a forest to burn before it can exist. James is Raoul’s burning ground, the fuel to his fire. A forest needs fire to clear the dead brush and the dying trees, to scorch the earth and make way for fresh soil.

One day they might return to MI6. Raoul is sure that he will not be welcome there, but he will follow James if that’s what James wants to do. He has one more year to keep James to himself. He will take advantage of it. If James wants to search for whatever he needs to fill the empty space, then Raoul will let him, but that doesn’t mean that he won’t demand to be spoiled when he wants to be.

“You spoiled brat,” James whispers in his ear when Raoul says this aloud.

Raoul grins, a sharp expression. “How will you spoil me?” he asks in a low voice.

“Like this,” James growls before dipping his head to Raoul’s erection. Raoul is careful not to touch the wound on the back of James’ head as it bobs up and down. Raoul rumbles pleasure deep in his chest. “Ah,” he moans, “that will do it.”

**Author's Note:**

> For fun, this is the bathing suit I imagine Raoul to wear: http://www.underwearexpert.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/2xistPaisleyBoardShortsBlue.jpg


End file.
